What happens to a nation of individuals riveted by ever present threats to the home? Lately, the U.S. has seen a host of home based issues arise and not a one has to do with more or better housing for all. Narrower and narrower have become our rights to the home, literally and philosophically. From the dimming right of return (post-Katrina, NOLA), to the diminished right of privacy (re-emergence of the home search as a condition on welfare, San Diego, CA), to ever diluted voting rights (evidence of election fraud in the past two elections), to what the New York Times calls, “the steepest housing slump in 16 years,” it is without a doubt an era of eviction from ways of knowing and owning “home.”

Today, Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury “Chief,” went over to the Georgetown School of Law to make an impassioned call of action aimed at key players in the government and financial lending industry. Paulson was basically like, “this housing slump ain’t gonna end, its not like most people are getting any richer, and 2 million motherfuckers looking for a home plain and simple, got caught up with these mortgages being offered at ‘teaser rates’, you know, like how the credit card and layaway folks do, little to no interest for the first year and then hit you with the heeeee right after, tryna ass us all out and shit, but anyway, these 2 million mortgages is about to be up for the mad rate increase within the next 18 months, and on top of that peoples are already struggling to hold on to their homes, come on now governments and banks, stop bullshitting and tryna blame each other and get to work on threading more flexibility through these loans so people bend but don’t break, cause we can’t have a nation of everyone homeless. Well, we could, but that would be like the depression and the only thing that got us out of that was World War II, but see we already in war now and still struggling, so feel me when I say we need to work on loan modification and refinance options, aka flexibility for the people, so they can stay sheltered.”

That’s basically what he said, with a little extra gravy on the side.

I’m like this, let’s keep our eyes on the issue of sub-prime lending and the ensuing battles while making sure to use our peripheral to peep what’s happening to “home” as a concept, as a right, in general. It is an era of eviction, and a time for philosophers and poets to fill in the national narrative blanks. So that we can better understand what the hell is going on.

“The division of the sea is not less important than the nuclear program.” (Ahmad Nateq Nouri, a former Iranian parliamentary speaker.)

The division of the sea? Damn, if that ain’t poetic fodder. The Caspian Sea. Take a look at her, before and after. She’s sitting on that black gold, and the male heads of state are getting hungery for all she’s got. The leaders of 5 nations bordering the Caspian Sea met today, including Mahmoud Amhadinejad and Vladimir Putin, making it the first time a Kremlin leader has traveled “to Iran since 1943 when Stalin attended a wartime summit meeting with Churchill and Roosevelt. Those 5 nations are Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. As the price of oil rises like R. Kelly talking about temperatures rising, folks are looking to the Caspian Sea and gathering to discuss; 1. the legal status of the oil and gas that lives under the sea bed; 2. who owns this natural wealth; 3. transit routes, aka, how are we going to get that wealth up from under there to where it can be bought and sold?

So, the whole meeting turns into a discussion about Iran and nuclear threat and the largely discredited (or so it seemed) International Atomic Energy Agency. And then Ahmad Nateq Nouri pipes up with that quotable gem.

I’ve ridden across the oceans of the world and have seen, smelled, the places where two oceans meet. Colors mingle, it is a natural sight to behold. There is no division of the sea in the long term. And let us hope that the short term carving leaves the land in an okay spot to heal. Feel.

Keep feeling y’all. Stay tuned for more of All the News That’s Fit to Flip, by political poet, NaXaL.

It’s been a deep and yet not deep enough day in the news. Keep reading for today’s Hip Hop based commentary on what New York Times headline articles say and, more importantly, don’t say, by political poet Naxal. That’s me. I flips the news like you never seen. Almost on the Daily. Enjoy.

July 15, 2007

okay, remember when iran caught hold of the cherubic six british soldiers infringing into iranian waters? iran held onto the brady bunch looking pirates like so much bounty despite near apoplectic demands by britain and the u.s. for the return of the so called hostages back to the u.k. and now, the queen of england awards salman rushdie the status of knighthood which he accepts. someones getting back at iran. and iran, regrettably, is publicly foaming at the mouth about rushdie, again. i wish they brushed it off, thereby robbing the british and rushdie of any perverse pleasure that could be had off this inane shit. can you tell it irks me? yeah, just a bit.

valentines day, 1989, khomeini issues a fatwa calling for the death of rushdie for the author’s so called desecration of the globally revered prophet mohammed. decades later, and the hunt is on again. for who? for a writer. with so much internalized racism you can barely see his true color any more. a writer. with so much talent, his sentences leave you calling out for more. and i don’t want to abandon you, rushdie. you are talented, you are leader, and now, you are more a pawn than ever before. i don’t like how black folks are doing michael jackson, and i don’t want us to do that to you. but knighted…by the british? dude, wasn’t there anything else for you to do? couldn’t you have gone shopping that day in picadilly circus? rode a double decker bus, bought the bus with cash and then picked up random tourists telling them there is such a thing as a free ride? i expected more from your imagination. but then, internalized racism is a bitch.

*

it is 1932/two years after many of us marched for salt

i didnt/i am paid by the british army

white pants/red soil

these palms read countless times

by mummi of three pots, 15 children, and one hundreds of ryhmes

fate etched/my hands awake

to touch meri pathi goodbye

she is threading jasmin ropes through the midst of her hair

black and white fill my nose

i am proud for this job

to have a place to go

looking so/smart

though the propaganda pavement

civilizes/cements

what color

is the grey of my heart?

*

Stay tuned for more of All the News That’s Fit to Flip by political poet, NaXaL. You could read the news, or you could read me. I say, do both!

This is the first online taste of my hip hop based political commentary on New York Times headlines of the day. I chose the NYT, because, for better and worse, it is widely considered the paper of record for this country and beyond. In these journalistic poems, I hope to address the following questions: What can we learn from the news today? And, importantly, what do we FEEL from the day’s most headlined stories? Enjoy.

March 28, 2007

breaking news/
binding shoes/
ancient china to high heeled blues/
walter mosely and the context clues/
at facing race where i started this blog/
ima send this to yall/
breaking news/

breaking news/
breaking you/
down to split seconds/
a water champion named phelps/
beat his own world record/
the australia world swimming competition unfurls/
butterfly on a man vs. man stroke/
and sports aint no joke/
politically/
but there is a bit of me/
that wonders at the epitome/
of humanity fixated on a tenth of a second/
when its generations of war we as a whole manage to ignore/
the hardest questions/
the longest war/
me vs. me/
on the four, three, two/

breaking news/
one point seven nautical miles inside iraqi waters/
or 500 yards into iran/
bring on the slaughter/
its a set up/
a let down/
a bumper sticker on the street now/
says im already against the next war/
thats for damn sure/
and the diplomatic contest begins/
with power point maps/
they are making a case/
before the international judges/
we are asked to consider/
coordinates in water/
come up with an answer/
but when do we get to ask questions/
learn lessons from history/
gerrymandered water/
could you tell us the answer/
on the tips of your waves/
form an iranian dancer/
her mantra bends coral reefs softly/
let us go/
let us go.

breaking news/
“i can say that a public slaughtering took place, but there was no reaction from the authorities”/
said a resident of al wahda/
in iraq the police killed willingly/
reprisal is a word reporters define by default/
i dont think punishing a people/
for a suicide bomber makes sense/
whose fault/
when people end it all to no end/
no longer vietnam/
when the buddhist monks ablaze in the square/
compelled the world to a take minute to look war in the face/
i swear/
50 gun shots in new york/
50 killed in al wahda/
in public/
who does this/
and why?

breaking news/
armando ducat jr./
a kindergarden teacher with political connections/
takes his class hostage/
to teach manilla officials a lesson/
pay for their education like a goverment’s supposed/
to do im thinking local crews got similar blues/
when teachers take violent measures/
what does it mean for us on u.s. soil to pay dues?